Drying Basil & Rosemary : The Spice must Flow

We're having an amazing garden year.
I say "we" but that's a lie.  Eric is having an amazing garden year.  His green thumb gets greener all the time.
Among other items thriving this year are our spices: basil and rosemary.  We've got so much more than we could ever eat, and I've been putting basil in almost everything for weeks now.  Eric has mastered pesto, but for all of our plucking and pruning, our plants grow bigger and bigger.  So in an effort to waste not, we decided to dry out the spices and preserve them for future use.  Here's how we did it...


Go to the garden and cut chunks of your plants off.  Start from the top, and just snip away decent lengths - I did about 10" sections.  Wash them thoroughly, then use a salad spinner to remove excess moisture. Lay out to dry for a bit.

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh Basil

Washed and Spun Rosemary

Washed and Spun Basil

Once they are pretty much dry, bunch a few branches together - I grabbed like 4 or 5 at a time, and tied them together with some string  that was leftover from a previous project.












I would recommend a rubber band or twine next time.  As the branches dried and shrank, the silky string got a tad loose, and one bunch almost fell.  Learn from my mistake.

Tie your branches somewhere to dry.  Should be cool and breezy, like a pantry or maybe in your dining room under a ceiling fan because that's the only space you can find?


BEWARE: if you do this inside, your entire house will smell like rosemary for a week or so.  It's pretty rad, unless you hate the smell of rosemary.

I had to use twist-ties to actually get the bunches to stay in place along the shelf string.  Silky black string is pretty, but not that functional for this project.

   

     .....WAIT TWO WEEKS.....

Before...

After

 

You can store the spices however you'd like: crumble the basil, chop the rosemary into bits.... it's up to you.  I just stored the basil and rosemary leaves whole - I pulled the leaves off of the stems and put them in baby food jars, cause we've got tons of them.  See, having kids totally has perks!

FINISHED! 

DIY Kiddo Floor Cushion

I've been feeling the crafty bug lately.  Ever since the kiddo was born, I've been using all my free time doing stuff like keeping her alive and watching her laugh.  "Making stuff" hasn't been a priority.  But last month, I whipped up a few quick swimsuit costumes for a beach trip, and sewing was back in my system.  I needed a quick fix, so this past weekend I headed to my trusty Pinterest boards and found a project: a floor pillow cushiony thing for the child to flop into.  (It also makes a comfy grown up pillow for laying on the floor when playing with kiddos!)  

There's a great tutorial here but I made a few tweaks because I do things in the easiest way I can.  So I'm posting my process below!

Step 1: Buy Fabric
You don't have to use upholstery fabric, but you want it to be a sturdy fabric that can take a pounding.  I recommend shopping locally, so I visited my friend Nicole's shop The Cloth Pocket and after an hour of narrowing down, chose this gem - mostly because I loved the lemur.

Step 2: Cut out your pieces
You will need two 17" circles, and one 9" x 54" strip (if your fabric isn't 54" wide, you'll need to piece 2 strips together)  I made a pattern for the half circle by taping 2 sheets of paper together and using a ruler to measure 8.5" from the center point to create the arc.  
Optional handle pieces: two 3" x 12" strips
All of your main pieces will fit on ONE yard of fabric.  I used a purple accent fabric for the piping and handle.  

Fold fabric in half twice lengthwise, place half circle fabric on the folds.  Make sure to put your kitties in time out before starting, otherwise they will get ALL up in your business.

Cut your 9" sections

**Want to do the mega ultra easy version?  You can leave off the decorative piping edges and sew your 9" strips together and cut it down to 54" long.  Then sew your strip to the circle, making sure to place right sides together.  Make sure to leave a little gap to turn the pillow inside out and stuff it. Done.    
If you want to do the long version and add the decorative piping and handle, keep reading!  

Step 3: Piping
You can buy pre-made piping at any fabric store.  But sometimes you can't find the right color or size, or you balk at the price and say "I'll just make it myself for waaay cheaper" and you'll end up making your own.  Here's how to do that.  I swear, it's easy.  
Start by getting yourself some cording in whatever size you want your piping to be.  You can find a wide variety of options here, but since it's going to be covered, you want to keep it simple and cheap.  Get creative - I used 3/8" nylon roping that my husband found at Home Depot, which was a fraction of the cost of any cording at a fabric store.  

Nylon rope

Next, cut your fabric strips to cover the cording ON THE BIAS.  (For the uninitiated, bias usually means a diagonal cut, perpendicular to your selvage edge.)  You want to strips to cover the rope, and leave about a 1/4" seam allowance, so your width will depend on the size of your cords.

Cutting bias strips

Sew your strips together by lining up the corner edges, right sides together, to form an L shape.  Snip off the excess in your corners.  Congrats, you have successfully created bias tape.

Bias tape!

Start covering your rope with the bias tape.  Pin snugly against the rope.  Make sure the right aside of your fabric is on the outside of the rope!

 Using the zipper foot of your machine, sew the fabric snugly against the rope.  Now you have Piping!  

Step 4: Assembly 
Take your circle and pin your piping to the right side of the face, edges together.  Then lay your side strip face down on top, line up your edges, and re-pin all the layers together.  Make sure you remove all of the old pins!

At the ends where your piping meets itself, overlap them in a V shape.  Proceed to sew your three layers together. My machine did not want to sew over two layers of nylon rope, so I trimmed the rope down on the edges so that I was only sewing over rope on one side, and the fabric of the piping on the other end.   

Final look of  fabric sewn together , with piping overlapped.

**If you want to attach a handle, sew it on the side before you attach the other face.  Sew your handle fabric strips, right sides together, leaving one end open to turn it inside out.  Stitch up this opening, and then attach your handle however you want.  See photo below for how I did mine!   

Step 5: The Stuffing

Halfway through sewing, I decided to relocate my open seam for stuffing, in order to hide it under my handle.  So I seam ripped one of the side panels large enough to fit my hand in, turned the entire thing inside out and started stuffing. I used about 48 ounces of Fiberfill to get a very stuffed, firmer pillow.  You can use more or less depending on the desired fullness of your pillow.   

Handle and stuffing hole!

get stuffed!

Hand stitch up your hole, and YOU ARE DONE!  Throw a child onto the pillow and watch them go.  

Finished.

Time to play!

Advice for Visiting New Parents

I have several friends with kids, so I’ve visited lots of new parents and their brand new cuddly bundles of cuteness, and tried to do the best I could to be considerate of them.  But now that I’ve gone through the experience myself, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t ever an ideal guest.  In fact, I know I was a jerk a few times - unintentionally, of course.  So here’s my advice to everyone else, so we can all be better friends to the new parents in our lives:   

- Visit the parents and baby, but wait at least a week or two (unless you are family), even if they say to just come over whenever.  Give the family a little time to settle in and adjust.  They don’t know what they are doing yet, and they’d prefer few people see these early days of terror.  

- Come over at 3 am.   I know the visiting hours say “dinnertime” or whatever, so you can visit at normal hours, but you know when Mom could really use a helping hand?  When the baby is up at 3 am, crying.  Mom really needs to pee and hasn't had dinner yet probably, and would really like to brush her teeth and change her clothes.  She’d wake up Dad but he has to work in the morning, and it just wouldn't be fair to him.  So this is when she could use your help most.  I’m only half joking here - you night owls out there, take note!  

- Bring those nutritious dinners and frozen casseroles over, but bring a tray of muffins, or croissants, or donuts.  Ready-to-eat food that can be grabbed with one hand at those 3 am moments when no one is around to help.  Bake some of those granola protein lactation cookies if you’re a baker.  Throw lots of chocolate chips in there, because Mama needs a treat.   

- Bring over dinner, but don’t plan on eating with the family.  It might happen, it might not.  Let Mom and Dad’s behavior guide you.  Are they pulling out plates and setting a place for you, or is the food still in a bag on the counter while they stand near the door with polite frozen smiles?  Feel the room.  

- Do not ask what you can do to help out - just find something and do it.  If you ask what you can do, Mom’s going to tell you to do nothing because moms are superheroes and can do it all themselves.  Just find something, anything to do, like take out the trash or do dishes or fold laundry or wipe down the bathroom, and then just sit there and take it while Mom tries to protest.  She will thank you for it later when she’s a normal person.

- Don’t ask what you should bring for food.  Ask if there are any allergies to be aware of, and then bring whatever.  Make it healthy and filling.  Or ask what they don’t want/what they are sick of.   They don’t know what they want to eat, they only know that they are hungry. They will eat whatever you bring.   

- Don’t be surprised or shocked if Mom whips out a boob to feed the kid or starts breast pumping in front of you and your boyfriend. Try not to stare or make her feel uncomfortable.  It’s just that she’s had half a dozen people in her hoo-ha lately, so the boobs are small potatoes now in the modesty department.  The boobs keep a tighter schedule than the baby does sometimes, so she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.  Oh, and if you see a giant nipple that freaks you out, the answer is yes, it will shrink back down, so now you don’t have to ask about it.    

- Don’t be surprised or shocked if Mom starts crying.  She’s a pretty volatile cocktail of hormones and sleep deprivation, no matter how hard she’s trying to hold it together.  She sometimes really can’t help it, and she’ll be pretty embarrassed to break down in front of you.  Pretend you don’t see and keep acting normal.  Trying to soothe her or make her feel better won’t work, these aren't normal tears.  Drawing any attention to her will just make it worse.   

- If you come within the first month of a new baby, keep conversation light and easy.  Even if Mom seems like her normal self, even if she seems rested and refreshed and totally together and her hair is immaculate, she’s most likely still sleep deprived but is trying to pass herself off as totally okay.  But she is not going to be a master conversationalist, and she’ll probably forget a lot of what you discuss.  So if there’s anything important or that you wanted a response on, text it to her for reminder.  And don’t be offended if in a few weeks she asks you things you've already discussed.  Just chat away at her and make her feel loved and normal.  

- If they have pets, give a lot of attention to them.  Pet them, brush them, cuddle them, give them a treat.  They are most likely just fine and being well taken care of, but they probably are not getting the same level of attention they used to, especially in those early days when the household is still adjusting, and they just might be acting like dicks who are underfoot all the time, trying to trip you in a dark hallway as you walk with a sleeping baby in your arms.  Mom and Dad still love their furry babies.  They just need a little pet backup right now.

- This is probably the most important one: I’m really sorry, but if you show up for a visit, and the baby is asleep, leave quickly and reschedule.  I know this seems cruel, it’s not your fault the kid is asleep, you came at the pre-approved appointment time!  But this is the ONLY time Mom and Dad have to themselves, and your visit is cutting into their sleep/shower/house-cleaning/eating time, and if they miss this window, it could be another day before it comes around again.   If you stay and chat until the kid wakes up again, Mom may seem like she’s happy to see you, but a part of her is crying inside.  She’s really sorry, she loves you, but she just wants you to go

- Are you staying for a longer visit?  Then do Mom a favor and ask her to tell you her birth story, even if you really don’t care.  Because Moms LOVE telling their birth stories.  In ridiculous detail.  So even if the word “cervix” makes you cringe, just zone out and nod along as Mom tells you her tale.  She might even know that you are totally bored and uninterested, but she won’t care that you don’t need an hour by hour play of dilation.  It’s NOT that she thinks that this was her miracle moment of triumphant womanhood - your friend most likely hasn't turned into a total douche like that.  It’s just that the weirdest thing ever just happened to her, and she’s still replaying it in her head over and over again, trying to wrap her head around it, and she needs to talk to her friend about it.  She just had this wacky day at the hospital and now there’s suddenly a baby - a freaking BABY!!   She’s a little freaked out...no, she’s a LOT freaked out.  So just feed her muffins, fold the laundry, and listen.  She’ll be back to normal pretty soon.  

Maybe I should just stop talking to everyone...

So, I've done something that I am not proud of, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why I did it.

Let me start by saying this: I had this issue throughout my pregnancy, and it bugged the crap out of me.  I can sum it up with "strangers talking to me about my pregnancy."  
There's a thing that happens when you are pregnant, where you are incubating this tiny human, and everyone in the world feels the need to comment on it.  People stop seeing YOU, they just see The Belly.  I don't know why this is.  It's bad enough when it comes from friends, family, and co-workers, but these are people you speak and deal with on a regular basis; you expect their questions and comments and complete disregard for the person you used to be, so you put up with it.  But why the strangers?!   I couldn't stand that every single random person I crossed paths with just felt the need to say something about it.  Why did these strangers think they could talk to me?!?!  

 Some kept it simple and just exclaimed "oh, you're pregnant!"   Ummm, yeah.  Holy crap, you're right!  No way!  
Most had the standard script of questions you were forced to answer over and over again: "Boy or Girl?  How far along are you?   Is this your first?"   
And then there were the over-sharers, like the dude at the tile store who, upon seeing my pregnant belly, excitedly told me that his also-pregnant daughter had just lost her mucous plug the day before!  Oh, so gross.  How did this man think that I wanted to discuss mucus plugs with him?  Or anyone ever?  How are you even supposed to react to that?  
The answer is: with a polite smile.  
I did soooo much polite smiling to strangers, when I really just wanted to tell them to f**k off and mind their own business.  It was a constant source of annoyance to me, and made me feel invisible as a whole person – I was now only the baby.  I wanted a preggers shirt that said "Don't talk to me about my baby."  

Just leave me alone altogether, okay?

Cut to now: my kiddo is 4 months old, and no one has asked me about my stomach in a while, woo-hoo!   I've stopped for a breakfast taco at our neighborhood taco shack on my way to work.  Today, I notice that our usual cashier is pregnant.  She always wears a big apron, so it's taken a while to notice, but suddenly, she is very visibly pregnant.  I actually think, "oh, she's pregnant!"   
And then, to my utter horror, I hear myself say to her "Boy or girl?"
The voice inside my head starts yelling at me: Seriously?!?!?!?!  What the hell, dude?  You know how annoying that crap is, why would you do that?"
Taco girl smiles politely and says "Girl." 
I can't believe it when I hear myself continue "When are you due?"  
She responds with "July" and another short, polite smile. 
Are you fricking kidding me?  Stop talking!  Go away, let her make your taco!  She doesn't want to talk to you.  It's only 7 am and you are the first of a billion people who are going to comment on her belly today.  Walk away, now.
To my utter despair, I am in the grips of some unstoppable force of annoyance, and I can't help but see this script to the very end.  "Is this your first?"
Taco girl nods, and just walks away to get back to work.  
Way to go.  Are you proud of yourself?  You've become the very thing you hate.

  

WHY DID I DO THIS? 

Did I say it because this is what human behavior has taught me is expected of me to say to a pregnant woman?  Has the repetition of hearing those questions for months made it compulsory?   Perhaps it is my revenge upon the world – they did it to me, so I’m going to do it to you?   Am I excited for her, this perfect stranger, that I know the joy she has coming towards her, joy she can't even imagine?   
Or is it that now she's part of some inner circle, and this is the hazing ritual she must endure?  We prep each other with these easy questions about due dates to ease you into things, but when the kid is born you'll lose all sense of privacy about your body and find yourself spilling your guts to anyone who asks.  You'll realize one day you've been talking about breast pumping for half an hour to a co-worker, or you've gleefully recounted your birth story a dozen times, and you'll wish you had a dollar for every time you said the word cervix.  Those "boy or girl" questions are nothing next to having to answer "How was your first poo after giving birth?"   

I don't know what compels us to talk about all this stuff.  It's got to be some kind of woman/mom thing that can’t be explained.  Maybe those pregnancy hormones corrupted my genes, and now I'm a member of some horrible sorority of women who ask each other inane, obvious questions and talk about our cervixes and nipples too much. 

(those are supposed to be milk spots)

So, I’m warning you all.  Beware.  I just can’t stop myself.   This is parenthood.  I got on the crazy train, and there’s not getting off.  Let’s just see where we go from here!  

Conception Day! (aka Ready or Not)

I'm pretty sure it's not a thing I should celebrate publicly, but today is Conception Day!  

Yup, one year ago today, my daughter sprung into existence.  I wouldn't know about her for another three weeks, and I'm pretty sure that three weeks from now I won't be celebrating "Pregnancy Tests & Tears Day," so I'm using today to look back at the last year, and as an excuse to introduce another aspect to my blog: parenting and motherhood.  

One year ago today, I stood on a rooftop at sunset, enjoying the view with the man I loved and thought to myself, this is a perfect moment, and I am so immensely happy.  

Couple selfie to capture the magic!

I like to think that this was the exact moment of conception.  Our kid decided that she really wanted to join our family, that she just couldn't wait anymore.  To be super cheesy about it, I think our happiness was a beacon that drew her into existence.  Because we definitely didn't ask for her...  

This wasn't an adventure I had planned on taking just yet.  We were only three years into a five year plan when that second line appeared.  So yeah, there were tears.  And panic.  And curse words. There would have been a crap-load of tequila, but, you know...

 

Here’s something I peed on!

I liked kids, and I was pretty sure I'd maybe want my own someday, but that was for future Wes to deal with.  But suddenly, the future had said to hell with my schedule and decided that NOW was the time.   And as 15 years of reproductive clockwork and control came crashing down around my feet, I tried really hard not to feel like a teenager who had gotten in trouble. I was an adult.  I was in a steady relationship with the man I would spend forever with.  I had a great job, with health insurance.  I was not "financially ready" for a child, but it’s laughable to think I ever would have been.  The timing seemed as good as any when it came down to it.  And as I talked myself away from the edge, things began to look better and better.

I don't think there ever would have come a time when I would have declared myself "ready" for a kid.  So the kid decided that she was ready for us, and barged her way into our lives.   I had been softening towards kids for a few years, but for many years I had been very vocal about NEVER having kids.  I spent most of my twenties with “getting pregnant” at the top of my list of fears.  I was redonkulously careful and safe.  I was the kind of person who, even if I hadn't had sex in a year, would have a minor panic attack about pregnancy if my cycle was a day or so late.  My mom did her job too well scaring us into safety with all those sex ed lectures.  

Over the years and as I approached 30, my “NEVER” became a “maybe.”  I saw friends have kids first and thought “I could do that, maybe.”  Then I met a man and knew right away that I’d spend the rest of my life with him, and maybe have his kids someday.  And without even realizing it, I relaxed my rules about being super careful.  Then, BOOM.  I didn't know it then, but finding myself accidentally knocked up was the best way it could have happened.  I never had to make the choice I didn't know if I really wanted to pull the trigger on, and I didn't have to hear the ticking of my biological clock counting down to doomsday.     

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason, and that everything always works out for the best.  I held firm to that in those first days, trusting the universe to take care of me.  That theory made me take the pregnancy test out of the trash and take a photo of it, knowing that someday I'd be happy about those results and want to celebrate them. And I was right.  I couldn't imagine not having my daughter now.   She makes us complete.   She just belongs here.   She's the living embodiment of our happiness. 

Happy Conception Day, little dude.  Thanks for joining us.  You are proof that the Universe knows best,  and everything is as it was meant to be. 

Ready or not, here I come.  

My best craft yet

I know, I've been absent for a while, but I promise, I have a perfectly good reason.

See?  I've been busy!

That's right folks.  Last year I embarked on my greatest project yet, and it left me with very little energy for anything else.  I slept through most of my pregnancy, and did very few projects, focusing mostly on my wedding and baby shower.  I'll have to post about those retroactively someday soon.

My little bundle of giggles is now 3 months old, and I've found myself getting back in the crafting game, slowly but surely.  I've completed a few small projects, eased myself back into things, building up to bigger and bigger projects, trying to find my new footing, and learning that things that were once quick and easy may now take longer than expected to complete.  Something else gets my full attention now.  I'm appreciating these last bits of time that my daughter is immobile, as I notice the box of pins, tubes of glue, pairs of scissors, and hot glue guns laying out across the table: my innocent crafting will soon become a danger doom zone.  Gone are the days of just letting the pins drop and then running a magnet across the floor when the project is done, or leaving projects out on the dining room table for days until they are complete.  I will have to change my entire methods of approach, figure out how to be a parent and a crafter at the same time, and learn how to be a tidy creator in order to keep the danger at a minimum.  

It's cool, she's totally worth it.